Here is a transcript of Steve’s analogy:
Welcome back to a KOLG encore presentation of Steve Ray, convert to the Catholic Faith.
But I want to close with this analogy because I’ve probably gone way over. Now we can have questions. However you want to do it, those people in charge.
But a few people say to me now, what do you think about Protestants? Have you declared war on them now that you found the Catholic Church? What do you do about Protestants? And I use this illustration and I hope it helps you, hope it helps you understand and get a perspective of Catholics and the groups, the non-Catholic groups and so on, how we relate to them, how they got there and so on.
Imagine the founder of a country who builds a new country on the other side of the ocean and he wants to people it with citizens. So he comes back to his land and he picks and chooses the right people by his choice. He picks citizens for his country and he prepares them for a long journey across the ocean to his new city called the celestial city, heaven. You and I are the ones that he’s picked.
The ship he builds to take them across is a Catholic Church. He builds this beautiful luxury liner to get across the ocean. All kinds of modern technology. It’s got navigational charts, compasses. It’s got food and water and showers to be clean. It’s got everything you need. An excellent captain, a crew, everything you need [including] power to get across the ocean.
And he picks his special people and he puts them on this ship. And he sends the ship out across the ocean to the celestial city. The church is the ship. The captain is the pope. The crew is the priesthood and the clergy. The food is the Eucharist. The water is that of Baptism. The showers are confession. You can get clean. The power is the Holy Spirit who moves the ship. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. Everything you need is on that ship to get there to the other side. The fullness of the faith given to us by the Creator of this new country and giving it freely. He puts us on and sends us across.
Everything’s rosy and beautiful until halfway across the ocean. Some of the people start to argue and protest. They’re getting tired of the same old food all the time. And some of these people aren’t so nice as we thought they were. And some of them don’t even smell so good. And who is this captain, by the way? Who is this captain to be bossing us around? What gives the captain the right to tell us what to do? And so they get in a protest. And they decide to go down below and they find in the ship wood and ropes. And they build rafts to float in the water. And they collect water and food and clothes and everything they need. And they throw their raft on off the side of the boat and they jump on it and now they’re free. They’re on a raft and they’re free. They no longer have to obey the captain. They no longer have to eat that old food anymore. They no longer have to live in subjection and live with those people who smell bad. They can now be out on their own and they’re free.
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How many rafts do you think there are in the water around the ship? 33,000. The Oxford University Encyclopedia of Christianity said that there are now over 33,000 different denominations calling themselves Christian one way or another. So now we have this beautiful ship heading across the ocean and bobbing around here are 33,000 little rafts. The closer the raft stays to the ship, the better chance it has of getting to the other side. The farther the raft gets away from the ship, the less chance they have to make it to the other side.
And let me ask you a question. Everything good they have on the raft. Where did they get it?
From the ship. Everything good that I had as a Protestant, I got from the Catholic Church. But I never knew it. The Bible was put together by Catholic bishops. It was copied and carried on through history by Catholic monks. The sacraments, we only had two. The Lord supper and the baptism. We only had two of those. The church had seven. But all the good things I had on the raft I got from the Church. Protestants don’t realize that. You need to remind them of them. They’ll admit it when you push them hard enough. But one interesting thing is I did not jump off the ship. I was born on a raft. I was born out on a raft. I didn’t even know there was a ship. I was perfectly content because I didn’t know any better. Our little Baptist raft floated around and we could yell over to the Lutheran raft and the Methodist raft and the Assemblies of God raft and the Community Church raft and we kind of fellowshipped and yelled back and forth and life was grand until one day I saw on the horizon something real big. And I said to everybody, “What’s that?”.
And their answer was, “Don’t want to talk about it. Why not? Cuz it’s bad. Why is it bad? Cuz it’s the ship. Don’t want to talk about the ship. But I keep asking questions and I find out that the ship was really the way the founder of the country set us all off in the beginning.
And I started to think, why yes, of course. How stupid a founder of a country would be to send us all off in 33,000 different rafts and say, “Hope you get there.” Of course, he would build a luxury liner for us. Of course, that’s the way to go. So, I do my research. I read and I learn and I yell to everybody else. And finally, I get back on the ship. I become a Catholic. I’m back in the church and I’m amazed at what you have. You may take it for granted as Catholics, but we come in as converts to say, “My goodness, how wonderful it is. Look what you have.”
And the Catholics usually kind of look at us, “What’s wrong with you? You have seven sacraments.” So, and they work. Not really. I’ve used them my whole life. Don’t do anything for me.
Ah, but just Protestant converts tell you the sacraments DO work. We had to fight real hard to get here. And I tell you the sacraments work.
